


Be Brave

by Princess of Geeks (Princess)



Category: The Faculty (1998)
Genre: Angst, Bondage (mild), First Time, Future Fic, M/M, Romance, Underage Sex, virgin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-19
Updated: 2010-03-19
Packaged: 2017-10-08 03:08:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess/pseuds/Princess%20of%20Geeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of the movie, Zeke and Casey find each other. Pretty much all porn, here. Eager teenage porn. Written in 2004 and first posted at Livejournal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Brave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angstslashhope (Hope)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/gifts).



> Thanks to KayRey and Serai

Casey saw the new/old GTO through the front window. He got up quickly and silenced the Saturday cartoons with a punch to the remote.

"Mom, I'm gonna go take some pictures. I'll be back before dark," he yelled, already moving. He pretty much always had a camera in his hand, and they were used to that. So it was the most plausible excuse. He thought he heard some kind of assent from the kitchen.

Zeke had pulled up to the curb, and Casey bounded down the stairs and across the lawn and had the door open before he could wonder if that was too uncool. If it was, it was too late. Zeke shot him a glance and let in the clutch. He drove straight back to his house, as Casey had hoped he would. Casey's heart was pounding already.

When they got to Zeke's bedroom, Zeke's sweat pants from the night before were still crumpled on the floor. Casey swept the room with his eyes in the seconds he had before Zeke turned and pulled him close. There was no other evidence of the new fierce thing that exploded here last night. The room was neutral and empty. The sweat pants just sprawled there.

Casey wound his arms around Zeke's neck and gasped, because Zeke was already jamming his hands under Casey's clothes. Zeke's hands pressed flat against skin. They kissed intently, revisiting what they had discovered the night before.

"You want me to lie on top of you again," Zeke said. Casey smiled. He had noticed that Zeke would phrase things like questions, but not really expect an answer.

"It's working for me so far," he said, his smile opening into laughter, because he was so turned on and so fucking glad to be back here.

"Good," Zeke said. They stripped, only losing one button from Zeke's shirt, scrambling on to Zeke's bed.

They looked into each other's eyes the whole time. Zeke pressed and squirmed down against Casey, pinning him with his hips, silently daring Casey to be the one to cave and close his eyes first. Casey gripped Zeke's butt as he ground upward against him, all their pressed-together skin already damp with sweat. The inner curve of Casey's thighs dragged against the outer curve of Zeke's, and Casey found himself flattening his lower back, trying the different ways he could move his hips against Zeke. He caught an ankle on the curve of Zeke's calf, then pushed his leg up to wrap Zeke's hip. Zeke let out a ragged breath. He lifted a hand to Casey's cheek.

Zeke said, "You want me to fuck you, don't you. You like it under there." Casey's breath caught and the words sent shivers through his gut. All of a sudden he was right on the edge, Zeke's voice lashing him closer.

"You _want_ to be the bottom." Harsh breathless whisper; Zeke was about to come himself, his pelvis grinding against Casey's. "You want me to fuck you."

Casey groaned and dug his fingers into Zeke's skin, coming in a jolt of knees and hips, his shoulders bouncing up off the bed.

Zeke was laughing, low and pleased. They were so wet now, sliding. Casey tried to breathe and keep his eyes from closing. He was sure Zeke had to have gotten off at the same time he had, but he had missed it in the red blur.

"You fucking look like... I mean, it has your picture in the dictionary next to bottom," Zeke said, still moving his hips, but slower and slower, until he was languidly rubbing in little circles against Casey.

"Yeah, but it's your picture next to asshole," Casey retorted. He ran his hands up and down Zeke's back. Zeke was kissing him, kissing him, tilting his head first one way and then the other, licking Casey's lips and trying to talk.

"Want you, want you so much... I even jerked... off again after you left... and this morning, thinking about you.... It may be some kind of record."

Casey laughed -- not his nervous giggle, but a velvety sound that made Zeke smile and nip at his neck.

"I want to fuck you," Zeke said. "I want to." Casey held him tight with one arm and pulled Zeke's head down against his shoulder, feeling Zeke's hot breath on his neck. Casey closed his eyes. Delilah had never made him feel like this.

~~~

It had started so slowly. Casey wondered when it had really started for Zeke. He would be able to ask him soon, it looked like, and he might even get an answer. For his part, Casey was quite clear on when it had started for him. It was even before Delilah broke up with him. In fact, Casey knew the day.

It had been a Friday afternoon while Delilah's mother was gone somewhere. The team had the night off, so she didn't have to rush off and get ready for cheerleading. They were in her bedroom, and Casey's mind had just veered away from the reality of looking at Delilah under him, her ankles over his shoulders, her hair stuck in her lipstick. Right there, his mind had whispered, _Zeke,_ and so he had closed his eyes and there was the sardonic smile, the evil, lowered look that said, "Everything is fucked." Delilah hadn't even gotten routine yet, but there was Zeke, invading their bed.

They hadn't really talked since That Night in the locker room when Zeke scared the shit out of him, while he crouched there in the equipment cage with Stokes. They had gone their separate ways. Zeke had fended off Burke, and Casey had his moment of stardom and fucked the head cheerleader and overnight people had quit using him for a punching bag and started looking at him with this wary confusion, like maybe they should be afraid of him but they didn't know why. But when Casey and Zeke happened to see each other in the hall, their eyes would meet. Zeke would pin him, serious and intent, and then they would just walk on. But after that one Friday, Casey could not stop thinking about him. He didn't think Delilah even noticed that he was getting kind of preoccupied.

Casey started to crave real pictures to go with the ones his mind was supplying him. So he showed up at football practice. He collected images: Zeke grappling with a lineman; the muscles of his calves showing through the tight fabric of the uniform pants. Zeke taking a handoff, his face invisible in the helmet but his body cocked forward and tight. Zeke after practice, sweat making his hair stick out at all angles, glaring at the lens through a cloud of cigarette smoke. Casey layered the black and white prints over the old ones of Delilah on his bulletin board.

The second time Casey showed up to take photos at practice, he waited when it was over. He leaned back against the fence at the top of the bleachers until he saw Zeke sit down on the bottom row. He wondered if Zeke wondered what he was doing there. The crew was taking the benches and the water jugs away. Casey shivered a little at the thought of the water jugs. Then he began carefully stepping down the seats. It was a long step from one aluminum bench to the next. He didn't try to be quiet. He stood near Zeke's shoulder, a little to the side. Zeke didn't turn his head. He had on a grey sweatshirt under his practice uniform. The smoke from Zeke's cigarette mingled with the cloud of his breath on the cold air.

Casey looked at Zeke's profile and how his sweaty hair was stuck to the curve of his ear, and he didn't say, "Hi," or "Zeke," or "Could I buy you a coke," or "What's your sign; you look like a Scorpio." Casey said softly, "You were the only one, the only one that didn't get infected."

Zeke listened a minute, absorbing that, and then he said without looking at Casey, "You're so sure."

"It was why I could stand to be with Delilah. If I hadn't been infected, I don't think I could have touched her. It would have been too gross, just getting reminded of what she looked like in your garage, right before she ran away."

Zeke twisted around to look at him, and there was something tentative and amazed in his expression.

"She got you at the end, then." They had never talked about this part before. Casey had not wanted to admit it.

"Yeah, it was just for a second. The parasites ... invaded my face ... and when the queen ... died-- they all fell out again."

Zeke stared at him. "What did it feel like?"

"It was awful in a way because I knew they were getting me, invading, but it was ... connection." Casey looked right at him. "Kind of like sex."

"Oh, like you know all about that now."

"I do, now." Casey held the dark gaze, amazed at his own bravery. Delilah had said that to him, that day before The Day, and it had echoed in his skull ever since: "Be brave, Casey," and what do you know. He was. "It was just for a few seconds, and then they all ... burst back out again. It hurt."

Zeke had finished his cigarette and he stood up. The new angle, looking up at Zeke, put the orange light of the setting sun right in Casey's face and he squinted. The glare made it hard to see, painful, but he didn't want to move. Zeke stepped closer. He reached up and stroked Casey's cheek, his hand sweaty and firm, smelling of bitter old tobacco.

"You have scars."

Casey nodded into his touch, excitement glissando-ing along his spine. His stomach started to hurt. _Be brave, be brave_.... Zeke took hold of his chin and tilted his face into the light so that he could see the faint scars on the other cheek.

Zeke's hand dropped. His eyes were flat as they looked into Casey's. He turned and scooped up his helmet, walked heavily away, without another word, toward the fence. Casey, not sure his knees would hold him, sat down on the bench.

~~~

Casey was waiting for the bus to go home in the sharp, fresh cold, eating an apple, reading ahead in his biology textbook, when he heard the familiar thrum of a big engine. Zeke's car was at the curb. He got up. Zeke had replaced the burned GTO with another one, same year, and he was in the process of repainting it black. It looked awful at the moment, sanded down to primer. It had been orange. Casey walked over and jerked the door open and got in.

Zeke said, "I've been watching the internet, looking at Reuters, at English language papers in Hong Kong, Russia. But I'm not sure what I'm looking for, exactly."

Casey smiled. It was just like himself and Stokely, talking in the library. Her books, his movies. Comparing notes. Trying to figure out what was next; if something was next now that Marybeth was history. Casey was happy to hear Zeke say it. Casey knew all about this, too. He answered, "Water company stocks. Trucking stocks. Irrigation equipment. Things like that. I haven't seen anything abnormal so far."

"The science journals are quiet, too."

"It's too soon for peer reviewed articles, but I've been watching the news periodicals. Scientific American, Nature, you know."

"Yeah. Nothing."

Casey watched him, let himself revel for a moment in the sheer drop of Zeke's olive skin from his cheekbone, the way his messy brown hair curved around his ear. He looked as if he cut his own hair. Delilah had groomed Casey, taken him clothes shopping, orchestrated a haircut, and these days he felt himself in an odd transition. Not going back to the Geek of the Month look he obliviously had before, but not feeling like what she had done to him was real, either. He thought he was a hodgepodge. But Zeke. Zeke would look sexy in a garbage sack. He looked at the curve of Zeke's neck, at the pulse beating there, and waited. He realized he had not put on his seatbelt.

"I knew you'd be looking, too," Zeke said.

"Stokely's looking."

Zeke nodded. "She talks to me sometimes. Stan is oblivious."

"Stan is pissed that he failed."

Zeke nodded again. They were driving down the strip.

Casey said, "He's mad at me now. Which is stupid, but I kind of understand it."

Zeke didn't say anything for a bit. Then he said, "You hungry?"

"Sure," Casey said. He was always a little hungry, it seemed.

Zeke drove into Sonic and ordered for them both. Casey smiled at that. Zeke didn't give Casey the sacks; just jammed them next to him on the seat and drove away again. He pulled into the driveway of his house and got out and headed for the garage, not looking back, assuming Casey would follow him. Inside, behind the double padlock, there was a new, much less elaborate distiller set up, and the mess had all been cleaned away. But there was no sign of mice, not even an empty cage.

They sat on the same couch. Casey realized it was the first time he had been back to Zeke's garage since that night.

"What did you do with the gun?" he said.

"It's better you don't know."

Casey nodded and kept chewing. Zeke wolfed down the chicken sandwiches and french fries and got up to throw away his trash. Casey was eating much more slowly. Zeke paced.

"It's very unlikely that we would see evidence before it was too late," Zeke said.

"I know," Casey said quietly. Zeke paced some more.

"It's very unlikely that there were more of them near here, either. They would have spread out, if there were more of them."

"I know. Rural areas, small communities near highways, market towns in places like China or Pakistan, probably -- places on the way to somewhere else."

Zeke looked at him, then went to the lab table and picked up a fistful of the fake pens full of white powder. He held them out to Casey.

Casey got up to take them and their fingers brushed. Casey stood there, looking into Zeke's eyes, because contact was what he wanted, and accidental was even best, because he didn't know what Zeke thought, but it was what he wanted and he was not going to back away. He let his eyes soften in the way that he had learned would make Delilah giggle and kiss him. The moment stretched out. Zeke looked scared, so finally Casey took the pens and turned and bent and put them in the outside pouch of his backpack.

"Just --" Zeke cleared his throat and tried again. "Just in case."

Casey stood up and nodded. Zeke stood there, hands dangling, his expression unreadable.

"I kissed her," Zeke said, and looked surprised at himself. "I kissed her and felt her up, right there in the science storeroom, right there. I know what would have happened; I would have fucked her right there, but we heard you guys talking and she wanted to see. She pulled away..." he closed his eyes. "She pulled away and we went out and that's when we knew that they had gotten to Furlong."

Casey walked over to him -- two steps, three -- and put a hand on his arm.

Zeke went on, "Stan talked to me once -- about the connection. That it was good, it was peace. But he said he knew, he knew right away. He just couldn't care." Zeke's eyes flew open. "I would know. I would know if she had gotten me." He looked at Casey, questioning, even though his voice was not.

Casey squeezed his arm. "Remember? Once Marybeth was dead, everyone came back. If you didn't feel anything then, then you know you weren't caught."

Zeke put his fingertips up again, tracing the fading pattern of scars on Casey's face. They were close, close enough that Casey could hear his disturbed breathing, could feel the heat coming off him under his checked shirt and black t-shirt. He tightened his hand on Zeke's arm with fingers suddenly gone cold. His fingers wouldn't reach all the way around Zeke's bicep, even now, with that arm relaxed and hanging down.

"Plus you did the scat, with us. You would know," Casey added.

All at once, Zeke stepped back a pace and swept two pens out of his back pocket. They tilted between his fingers. Casey looked at them and back at Zeke's face, frowning.

"You could use a tweak right now."

"If you say so," Casey said.

"I do say so," Zeke growled, and it was an odd reenactment. Casey took the pen, and Zeke backed up some more, and Casey knew, he knew even as he pinned Zeke with his eyes and snorted the powder, like before, he knew Zeke was still scared. It was so crazy, Zeke Tyler scared, but of course he was. He still craved proof, and this was proof, and it was not a problem for Casey to do this for him.

Zeke snorted, too, watching Casey as intently as Casey was watching him. Fear, certainly, but Casey saw a kind of weariness, a suspicion worn thin, that he could understand too.

"Better living through chemicals," Casey joked, twirling the empty pen between his fingers, waiting to feel the drug to bite into his blood. He had never done anything worse than sneak a beer, before the night he had had to prove himself human by doing Zeke's drugs. But the cascade of elation was familiar now, and there was nothing in this moment to get him upset; no fear running through him for the tweak to amplify. He felt calm, and a coiled sense of anticipation, and hope about Zeke. He knew all about Zeke's scat now, like he knew all about the gradations of getting off with Delilah. Just one more thing he could make his little body do. Instead of giving in to a nervous giggle, he just smiled and stood there and felt it spreading through him. Zeke was doing the same. Relief showed on Zeke's face -- relief and cynical amusement. Maybe Zeke was hitting the junk too much, because for a moment it made you not worry. For a moment or three, it made you not care.

"Guaranteed to jack you up," Casey joked again, and Zeke smiled. His gaze roamed the cluttered garage and he put one hand on the top of his head.

"I would know," he said, and Casey nodded.

~~~

Casey had borrowed his dad's car because he told them he had a date, and they still assumed it was with Delilah and they didn't mind at all; in fact they cooed over him. Casey grimly wondered what they would think if they knew what he was really up to. He had showered carefully, laughing at himself, combed his hair, dug out the gel Delilah had bought him, chosen his newest jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt that she had bought him because it matched his eyes. Both the silliness of all the getting ready and the detachment that he felt did nothing to impinge on his dogged preparations. He looked at himself in the mirror and curled his lip. _Be brave._ She had been surprised, when she had dropped him, when his fifteen minutes of fame was over, that he had not been more torn up about it. Guys wanted her; they wanted to keep her once they had her. She had been hurt that Casey had not tried harder to hang on. He lifted his chin as he looked at himself in the mirror. He turned off the light on his way out.

It was the night of the last football game of the season, and he waited in the school parking lot next to Zeke's freshly painted muscle car. He played the radio loud and tapped on the wheel. The Olds had a crappy stereo, but what could you do.

The parking lot was half empty when Zeke came walking up, surprise on his face, ducking to see who it was waiting for him, then relaxing when he saw it was Casey. Casey leaned over and opened the door for him, and Zeke got in.

"Did you win?" he said, starting the engine without turning off the radio.

"No," Zeke said, still looking at him like, what the fuck, but willing to go along. Zeke's hair was wet, and he was wearing a tight white t-shirt under a big corduroy jacket with a dark collar. He pulled the seatbelt over and Casey admired the outline of his right nipple in the parking lot lights.

Without waiting for the traffic to clear out of the lot, Casey headed for the grass and pushed the Oldsmobile over two curbs and across a sidewalk. He turned on to the street that ran in front of school. He could see out of the corner of his eye that Zeke was laughing.

"Whoa," he said, and Casey just looked at him. Driving across the curb like that was something Zeke would have done.

Casey circled the school complex and then drove aimlessly for a bit. He didn't say anything and Zeke didn't either, but he could feel Zeke watching him. He had thought vaguely of going to Zeke's driveway, or out into the country, or to Sonic or the deserted drive-in movie. But he ended up in the parking lot of the elementary school, by the playground. The wind was banging the tether-ball chains against the poles, a lonely sound.

Casey put the car in park and turned the key halfway, so that the radio would keep playing. He reached under his seat and pulled out the scat pen he had carefully put there earlier.

"What," Zeke said.

Casey looked right at him again and put the pen to his nose. Zeke looked really puzzled.

"I just wanted to make sure you knew it was me," Casey said, and when he leaned over and put his lips to Zeke's, Zeke didn't pull away.

So.

This was kissing Zeke.

Zeke's mouth tasted of Coca-cola and stale smoke.

Casey heard his own heart thudding, so loud that he had to open his eyes, because the sound disoriented him and made him dizzy. The rush was building and building and it was layered with the sexual rush and it was a lot. The blood pounding in his head overtook all his other senses. It even, for a second, until his eyes were open, blotted out the feel of Zeke's cool lips on his. He could see the curve of Zeke's cheekbone and a tiny glistening dust of stubble low on his cheek. He could see all this in fine detail, like through a microscope. It had that shimmering three-dimensional prismatic look. Zeke had a hand on his shoulder, pressing. Casey's right hand was clutching the seatback's upholstery, the pressure painful on his bitten finger ends, and his left was fisted in his own lap. Casey moved his lips a little, not daring anything more for the moment. Zeke pulled back and drew a breath. Zeke's eyes were closed. Oh. That was another reason for Casey feeling dizzy. Apparently he definitely needed to breathe, too.

Zeke was looking at him like he'd never seen him before. Casey looked back. He was sorry he'd taken the scat, but he had figured it was necessary, one more time, to totally reassure Zeke. He was so relieved it had worked. He felt the relief washing over him, relaxing his muscles. He wanted to giggle, but he didn't. He realized he had absolutely no idea what would happen next, what was plausible or likely or anything. He had been so focused on the idea of getting Zeke to kiss him, figuring out how to test if Zeke was the least bit queer and maybe possibly even interested, that there was nothing ahead of him now in the way of a plan. Even beyond the jittery effects of the drug, he realized he had been braced for Zeke to recoil, to shout, to hit him. He was still definitely primed to expect people to hit him if they got this close to him. Even Delilah had made him jump if she moved in an unexpected way, too suddenly.

Casey's breathing slowed and it soaked in on him that he could smell Zeke, smell soap and kind of a damp doggy smell of wet hair, and a spike of harsh sweat that meant Zeke had just showered and thrown his clothes on, no deodorant. He was probably intending to just go home from the game, home alone. Casey suddenly wondered what Zeke did when he wasn't in class or playing football or running around in the rain trying to kill aliens or getting catapulted over gym lockers. Casey realized he knew how Zeke looked when he had just shot someone and how Zeke looked when he had his own blood all over his face, and when he was bored in class. But hardly anything else. Like how he would look if he was happy. Or sleepy. Or just waking up in the morning.

Casey snapped to attention, wondering how long he'd been staring into Zeke's eyes. He put it together that it couldn't have been very long. Because Zeke had his breath back and Zeke's other hand was on his other shoulder, too now, squeezing, and then Zeke was kissing him again, hard, pushing against his mouth and holding his shoulders still with his broad hands so that Casey wouldn't sag backwards under the force of the kiss.

"How did you know? How did you know?" Zeke muttered, continuing to kiss him. Casey was gasping and he pushed his fingers into the tangle of wet hair at the back of Zeke's head, making a fist, tugging. Zeke pushed his tongue into Casey's mouth and Casey whimpered. And Zeke pulled back.

"Take me back to my car, okay?" Zeke said and his voice was rough. It took a minute for Casey to organize his thoughts, after that onslaught of Zeke.

Still looking at Zeke, at his wet, red mouth, Casey fumbled for the keys and turned them. The engine caught. Casey felt confused, felt a shivery wave of _This was a mistake._

"Sorry," he said, and put the car in reverse and realized he'd better look out the rear window if he was going to back up. He felt Zeke's hand on the back of his neck, warm and damp, and another wave shivered over him, like cold rain on his skin.

"No, no, it's okay, let's just get my car, and, go ... somewhere else...."

Casey snatched another glance at Zeke. He looked intense, almost mad. Casey sucked in air through his nose and thought hard about driving.

"To my house," Zeke added, like he had meant to say it a minute ago but somehow forgotten. He squeezed the back of Casey's neck and Casey could feel him looking at him.

The stadium lot was empty. Casey watched Zeke climb out of the Olds and slam the door and caught a distinct glimpse through the window of him rearranging his hard-on through his chinos as he turned to the GTO. He didn't look back at Casey but started the car and squealed away. Casey followed more sedately, but he caught up with Zeke at the first stoplight. Then they were in Zeke's driveway, and Zeke stood by the door of the GTO behind his house, waiting for Casey. His hand, hanging at his side, fiddled with his keys. Casey followed him up the back stairs and in through the kitchen door. Zeke leaned past him to throw the deadbolt, and leaned back in and made an "Mm" sound that stayed trapped in his throat. He cupped firm hands on either side of Casey's jaw, fingers extended to touch his ears, and slowly bent along Casey, molding to him, and kissed him again. Slowly. Thoroughly. Casey's arms went around Zeke's back, under his arms. Funny -- he could hug Delilah around her shoulders but Zeke was too tall for that.

It was all Casey had hoped for, had thought of, had tried to imagine when he looked through the viewfinder, through his big lens. The hard muscle under his palms, dragging against the t-shirt, the sweet/bitter/smoky taste of the inside of Zeke's mouth, the slight give of his quadricep against Casey's bony hip. He laid himself right up against Zeke, not hesitating at all. This was what he had dressed up for, planned for, this was what he knew he wanted.

"I didn't know," Casey gasped when he had to stop and breathe again, answering what Zeke had asked back in the parking lot. "I didn't know. I guessed."

"You fucking knew," Zeke growled at him. Casey stepped back and tore his t-shirt over his head, elbows folding and unfolding, and stepped in and took hold of Zeke's neck and pulled him down to kiss him again. He smiled and kept kissing, down the side of Zeke's face, along his jawline and to his neck, which was a comfortable angle, just the right height. He felt Zeke's breath catch and felt his hands smooth along Casey's spine, then back up again and along his shoulders. Then Zeke was moving, trying to walk backwards and kiss him at the same time, and Casey started giggling. Zeke shook his head and took hold of his arm and twisted around to lead Casey through the kitchen and down the hall.

The house was quiet and neat around them. It smelled of dust. Casey wondered where Zeke's parents were, what he was doing here alone. Zeke let go of his arm, and Casey put his palm in the middle of Zeke's back. Watching Zeke's ass, being so close to him, getting the air back into his lungs, Casey felt reckless and he thought of something else he definitely wanted to do with his mouth. He had not had a plan, but now he had the early sketches of one.

Zeke turned when he was inside his bedroom and skated his hands over Casey's torso, looking at his chest, looking at his face again, and now Zeke looked amazed. Casey moved closer and his hands went to Zeke's zipper. Casey closed his eyes, feeling the heat under the waistband, easing down the slacks and the white underwear. Skin and muscle and the smoothest hint of hair. Casey's face was getting hot and he felt surrounded by stillness, yet quite impatient. Without opening his eyes he knelt, tugging at Zeke's pants, and then he dragged his cheeks and his parted lips against the hot skin of Zeke's thigh, kissing the flat curls and moving right over to brush his cheek against Zeke's cock. Casey had never done this either, no more than he had had any experience in what to do with Delilah the first time, but this was much less strange, much more -- right. Familiar. He most definitely knew what would feel good to Zeke here. It fit, god, did it fit, the shiny smooth slide of the stretched skin, right into Casey's mouth, and Zeke moaned again, tilting, and steadied himself with hands on Casey's shoulders. Casey opened his mouth wide and licked him, rolled the end of Zeke's dick around his mouth, over his tongue, tasting him, eyes closed tight, one arm around a thigh, one hand tentative on Zeke's balls. He licked and eased the length into his mouth again, learning its ridges and veins, making Zeke gasp when the head bottomed out at the top of Casey's mouth. It felt so right, so perfect. Casey shifted his hand and balanced better on his knees and rocked into it, his other arm tight around Zeke's leg.

"Fuck," Zeke was repeating, leaning hard on Casey's shoulders, "fuck, I'm gonna come," and Casey pulled back to watch, keeping his hand moving in the spit he had left on Zeke, leaning back and watching, letting the white stream jet onto his chest, warm and messy. He was so hard himself that it hurt, and his knees hurt, and his lips were sore and he had caught a spot under his lower lip on a sharp corner of a tooth. Zeke sagged to his knees against Casey, leaned into him, tried to slide his hand into Casey's jeans, and Casey got them unfastened as fast as he could. He arched into Zeke's hand maybe three times before he sighed, almost a cry, and came, making a mess of his underwear. They collapsed sideways onto the floor, hearts pounding.

"Fuck," Zeke said again.

Casey wanted to laugh, but the feeling seemed to catch in his chest on a red lump of embarrassment. He was lying on Zeke Tyler's bedroom floor, just having blown him and pretty much exploded all over him. He felt very juvenile and very exposed. And his back was getting cold. But Zeke was pulling him closer, even as Zeke jerked his legs awkwardly to get his sneakers pushed off and his pants all the way off. Zeke was warm, and when he felt a shiver cascade through Casey, he pulled on him and helped him turn and wrapped his arms around him.

"Fuck." It was like it was the only word Zeke knew. Casey closed his eyes, lying there, his head tilted at an uncomfortable angle, feeling Zeke's chest rise and fall against his shoulder blades. He was limp and sticky and chilly. He stirred, wiping at his stomach, wiping his hand ineffectually on his jeans, which were bunched at his thighs, and then sat up. Zeke lay still, looking up at him.

"But, you were with Delilah," Zeke said.

Casey nodded. It was a fact. She had assumed he was a virgin, in her brutal, frontal assault way, without asking, which saved Casey the humiliation of having to admit it. That first time, she had taken him home and pulled him down in the bed, and he fucked her, with her barking commands at him the whole time. He went down on her, too, everything he could do to her, fumbling to be a quick learner, highly motivated, honor roll and all that, because she was totally about getting what she wanted. He felt a huge sense of accomplishment when he got her off that way, with his mouth. He was high with it, watching her shake and swear and slap her nails against his shoulders. Her thighs had those tight cheerleaders' muscles. After coming like that, she wanted him to fuck her again, and he did, and he got off again, too, and that time she urged him to slam into her as hard as he could, and she bit him. He was surprised to find he liked that, too. He had learned a lot from Delilah.

"I knew she would get tired of me," he said, linking his arms around his knees. He was still chilly, but he was not so embarrassed. "Pretty much as soon as the reporters stopped coming around, she was done."

Zeke was frowning at him, and he reached out, squeezed Casey's arm, let his hand trail up further, squeezed again at the marginal swell of Casey's bicep, at the round of his shoulder. He sat up and pulled his white t-shirt shirt off and left it where it fell. He got up and held his hand out for Casey's hand and pulled him up, then pushed Casey's jeans the rest of the way down. Casey tried to kick his shoes off at the same time and succeeded only in nearly falling down. Zeke laughed at him, but all the same, Casey was naked right away, Zeke's fingers peeling and pressing away fabric. Then all Zeke had on was socks, and those were gone, too, in seconds. Zeke jostled him toward the bed, and they fell on to it. Casey's eyes fell shut, because it was more bliss, and wild, shocked surprise -- Zeke's weight on him, his skin so hot it might have been sunbaked. Zeke's knee between his, Zeke's face at his neck. Casey writhed and rolled his hips, wanting something formless yet urgent, and Zeke shifted and his fingers were between them, rearranging dicks that were firming up again.

"Oh," Casey said, and his hands gripped Zeke's sides, just above his hips, pressing and smoothing the muscles, and he rocked -- he couldn't help it. Zeke was growling again, and Casey pushed against him, their cocks pinned between them, feeling the squeeze of Zeke's weight on him, and he was stiffening fast. It felt just right, to let his knees loosen and fall open, bending one a little to get his heel against the bed. He rocked, with more leverage for his hips this time, and fuck this felt good.

Zeke's forehead was pushing against his neck; Zeke's hips were moving, too. Casey got a sudden flash of perspective, like he was watching the two of them from outside his body, hovering in a corner of the ceiling. He blushed, seeing himself, knowing himself to be under Zeke, lying under him like a girl, like Delilah had lain under him. That wasn't entirely true -- Delilah had been on top enough times, riding Casey and screaming up at her silly fifth-grader's ruffled canopy top. But Casey put it together right away, what he felt like doing, being under Zeke like that, and he blushed and squirmed and pushed up against Zeke. He felt Zeke's teeth close on the trapezius muscle in his shoulder and he gasped. The rhythm was getting established, he and Zeke were finding it and losing it and finding it -- the sweet spot of movement that would press them both together with just the right slide, getting it more sustainable as the minutes went by. Teeth, and a wet smear of lips on his shoulder, and the rocking and wetness and the weight. He hooked his heel around Zeke's calf.

"Ah, ah," Zeke said, and pressed into him, rocking and sliding, and everything went silver and white for Casey for a few moments and that viewpoint he had from the corner of the ceiling vanished. When he could think again he was still deliciously trapped under Zeke's sweaty weight, gasping for air, and he blushed all over again to feel Zeke's ass, rounded and tight, under his hands. But Zeke didn't seem to mind, because he got up on his elbows a little to ease Casey's lungs. Zeke kept his face in Casey's neck and Casey felt him kissing. Casey breathed, feeling his heart slowing, smiling at the feeling of Zeke's heart pounding against his chest. Zeke leaned up some more and Casey found he could meet his eyes. He moved his hands up and gripped Zeke's biceps. They were still as they gazed at each other.

"We should take a shower," Zeke said.

"Yeah," Casey said.

They watched each other, a little wary, standing in the big shower enclosure, rinsing off quickly, then awkwardly moving around each other, bumping, as they found towels. Zeke sat on the bed with his damp towel bunched on his knees and watched Casey get dressed again, waited as he retraced his steps to the kitchen and found his shirt and came back with it. Casey stood there in the bedroom, dressed, not sure what to say or do. Zeke looked at him, his expression a little dazed, a little vague. Zeke seemed to realize he was naked and Casey was not, and he opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of sweat pants and pulled them on and stood up again. His hands opened and closed. Casey could not stop looking at the gently rolling flatness of Zeke's stomach, the small, pinched brown nipples, the twist of the muscles along his chest and over his shoulders.

"I should go," Casey said.

"Yeah?" Zeke said, and Casey wasn't sure what was in the question, or even that it was completely a question.

They were outside, and Casey was still hesitating, sure the rules were different than with girls, than for an actual date with a girl, but sure Zeke would be every bit as brusque as Delilah at her coldest. But somehow it didn't matter to Casey as much; somehow he heard, behind each neutral word of Zeke's, that growl he made earlier, and the little surprised, pleading sound that had squeezed out of him when he came with Casey under him. Casey stood there, a half smile on his lips. He dug his keys out. It was cold. How could Zeke stand out here like that, no shirt on, barefoot? The yard light made shadows along the planes of his abdomen, and more shadows that hid his eyes. Zeke was opening the door of the GTO and getting out his cigarettes. He lit one and then held his big Zippo loosely in his free hand. Casey had the door of the Olds open, ready to leave without another word, when Zeke spoke up.

"How did you know?"

Casey straightened up. He knew what Zeke meant, but he wanted to hear more. He wanted to see if Zeke would explain it.

"Know what?"

"That I'd be interested. Or that I even liked guys."

"I didn't know. Like I told you. I hoped."

Zeke shook his head. He looked up at the cold sky, exhaled smoke. He looked at Casey again.

"You are a fucking piece of work," he said, and Casey grinned. It was possibly the only compliment he would ever get from Zeke, and it was totally fine. It was hilarious, actually. He leaned an arm on the open door of the Oldmobile and kept grinning like an idiot. Zeke threw away his cigarette and walked over to him and took hold of the back of his head and kissed him again. He mouth was dirty tasting, full of smoke. When Zeke pulled back, he was smiling, too.

He stood there, as still as his shadow, as Casey got in his dad's car and carefully backed down the driveway.

~~~

Zeke lay there as if soaking up Casey through his skin, letting his weight crush Casey. Casey figured Zeke knew he liked the weight, because Casey's elbow was tight around Zeke's neck, Casey's laughter still shaking through both of them.

The velvety giggles ended on a sigh that was a long, long exhale, Zeke's weight making it so easy to let all the air out. Inhaling was an effort, but when Zeke tried to shift, Casey tightened his elbow and wouldn't let him. Casey was still feeling Zeke's skin along all of his, just a warm firm revel, a feast, an orgasm of brown skin. Finally Zeke put his weight on one knee, still pushed so casually and intimately between Casey's thighs -- shocking -- and both his elbows, and pushed up so he could look in Casey's eyes for a minute. He looked both satisfied and serious, a very catlike look, Casey thought, while he regarded Zeke calmly. So it was the morning after and it was just. fine. thank you. Casey's faked seriousness got to him and he swallowed a giggle and then spit it out. His renewed giggling dragged Zeke into it, too; they lay there with their stomachs stuck together, giggling at each other in a fit as intense as the ones produced by Zeke's white powder.

When Zeke could control himself he let his head drop, as if it were too heavy, and then raised it and looked at Casey again, smiling. He petted Casey's cheek, then yanked on his hair.

"Come on," he demanded as he levered himself up and looked around for his clothes.

"Where?" Casey sat up, but he didn't reach for his clothes yet. It was wild and funny, to sit here naked in Zeke's bedroom, the intense and heavy smell of come clinging on the air, like a camp-tent wet dream, with the memory of laughter and Zeke's intense kissing and his honest words fresh in Casey's mind.

_Want you so much... I even jerked off, thinking about you..._

He stared at Zeke, enjoying the view as Zeke dragged on his white underwear and his jeans and his shirt and shoved his feet into a pair of battered old white hightops, stretched out, the laces hanging loose.

"We need to get lube," Zeke said, like it was a self-evident proposition. Casey's eyebrows went up.

"Oh do we?"

"Yeah, come on." Zeke had found his car keys and was standing there, making sure he had a driver's license and some cash in his jeans pockets. He waited, looking expectant. Casey got up off the bed and took his time closing the distance to Zeke. He liked the way Zeke's expression softened and became amazed as he slid his arms up around Zeke's neck.

"Is that so you can fuck me," he whispered as he stretched up to bite his way along Zeke's jawbone, "or so I can fuck you?"

Casey felt Zeke's hand, the one without the car keys, sliding warm across his ass, pushing so that Casey was pressed closer. Casey stayed up on the balls of his feet, but he spread his legs, allowing or perhaps surprising Zeke into letting his hand slide into the warm crevice between his ass cheeks.

"Jesus," Zeke said, just before Casey pushed his tongue into Zeke's mouth. There was a jingle as Zeke dropped his keys. He supported Casey with one hand on his ass, while he awkwardly explored the territory with the other hand, finding the damp tight opening, almost experimentally pressing the big pad of his index finger against it, rubbing a little, just feeling it, not really trying to penetrate Casey, but clearly trying to get his bearings and figure it out. "Jesus," he said again, but he didn't get much of the word out because of how Casey was kissing him.

Casey closed his eyes, feeling the almost painful friction, trying to imagine it, trying to imagine Zeke's finger, Zeke's cock – and his cock was big, Jesus -- fitting in there, stretching him, fucking him. He didn't have much data with which to reason by analogy, though he could clearly remember the way his own fingers would slide into Delilah, slippery all on her own, without any lube, but that had to be a lot different. He never fucked her in the ass, either. He had never really even thought about doing that to her. The firm drag and press of Zeke's finger was making Casey hard again and he could feel Zeke getting hard against him, too, through his jeans. Casey's thighs were starting to quiver from the effort of staying stretched up toward Zeke like that. He pulled his mouth from Zeke's and opened his eyes as he eased his heels down. Zeke followed him, curving toward him, not breaking the contact of finger with ass.

"Yeah… lube... definitely," Casey breathed. This was hot. This was gonna be really fucking hot. He sank to his knees, breathing hard, undoing the belt and the buttons that Zeke had just done up. Zeke let him, not mentioning again that he was in a hurry to get Casey dressed and get him out of there and buy them some lube, yes, lover, hurry. Casey didn't figure it would be too hard to get Zeke to agree to this slight delay. Generally guys didn't turn down blow jobs. Casey knew he never had. Not once.

Yes, perfect, just fucking perfect, the just-dried come reconstituting itself in Casey's mouth as he slid up and around Zeke's cock, the slippery taste forming and then elusively vanishing, blending with the new wet from the tip and the fresh taste of Zeke's warm skin. Christ, he loved this. He had had a feeling he would fucking love this and he did; it was eyes-closed, trance-inducingly perfect, the warm stiffness filling up his mouth and begging to be sucked.

Well-balanced on his knees, Casey moved both hands to Zeke's hips and felt the big muscles at each side hollow and tense as he pushed and pulled Zeke into the rhythm he wanted. He moved his head in time with his hands, drunk on it. If he concentrated on how he was breathing, and relaxed, he could push Zeke fairly deep into his soft palate, and that was so fucking satisfying. He gave it his full attention.

"Fuck, Case, wait, wait," Zeke was saying hoarsely, trying to move, and Casey felt more than a little annoyed at the interruption. This was _important._ Zeke was awkwardly scooting sideways, bending over Casey, jeans stuck around his knees, until he could fall into the armchair that was a few feet away in the corner. Casey smiled and knee walked to him, sliding warm hands up Zeke's thighs and putting his mouth right there again. This was not quite as much fun as the other angle, but it would work. And it was certainly better for Zeke, him not having to try to stand up now.

Oh, yeah, one hand fit right there to keep Zeke still and Casey's dark head bobbed busily for a while, his other hand absently squeezing hard at Zeke's thigh muscle. Zeke was getting tense; he was still and tense and he moaned, a ragged, tortured sound, and then the hot sour come was pouring into Casey's mouth and it wasn't a bit hard to swallow it. He raised his head and licked his lips. Zeke lunged at him, pushing him backward to the carpet, leaning over him and kissing his chest, licking across a nipple -- wow bright intense and then gone -- kissing down his stomach, and then Casey closed his eyes again and just lay there flat, because Zeke's mouth was on him, tasting him, suction. This was every bit as good as fucking Delilah and much, much better than Delilah's blow jobs. _In fact, we can pretty much banish the whole Delilah thing from here on out..._

Zeke was taking his time, it seemed, running his tongue along the underside of Casey's dick, making Casey squirm and try to find Zeke's shoulder and hair, blind. Casey needed something under his palms, trying to escape the unconnected, lost feeling of lying there without touching any part of Zeke with his hands. He found some skin, some convenient part of Zeke's anatomy, and lay there whimpering as Zeke worked on him. He couldn't even raise his head to watch or wonder when there was a pause, the room's air cold on his wet tight skin, and suddenly Zeke's mouth taking him in again. He felt the nudge of Zeke's wrist on the underside of his thigh and he smiled and bent his knee. The exposed feeling, chilly and naked, his hips wanting to lift and tilt for Zeke -- it was thrilling, illicit. It was… wonderful.

Zeke's finger again, teasing at his hole, but it was warmer this time and apparently wet from Zeke's mouth. The sounds Casey was making formed themselves into curses as Zeke carefully, at no time letting up on the exquisite pull and lick of his mouth on Casey's cock, worked the tip of a finger inside Casey. Casey was melting. His bones were melting; he was a butterscotch chip inside a cookie inside a three hundred degree oven.

"Oh, oh, oh," he whimpered, and he jerked and spurted and it drove Zeke's finger a scraping knuckle further inside him, but didn't hurt, not really, not like you would think, a sudden push like that. Casey tried to breathe. He was seeing a beautiful red blur, like sunlight, even though his eyes were closed tight. Zeke was pulling away, his mouth and his finger, and it made Casey twitch and try to fold up around his own groin. He couldn't open his eyes.

"Oh, fuck," Casey said, as he felt Zeke's sweatshirt, warm against him, and Zeke's big engulfing arms and the sharp smell of new sweat. Zeke was holding him close, spread out against him. Funny how much taller he was and how you could tell that in a whole different way, lying on the floor like this.

"Will you come the fuck with me and get the fucking lube, you impatient dick?" Zeke murmured, but he didn't move.

"In a _minute,_" Casey insisted, aggrieved. He still couldn't move. Well, he could open his eyes. He had a nice view of Zeke's sweaty neck and the grey collar of the sweatshirt. He closed his eyes again. He was cooling off. He could still feel the ghost sensation of Zeke's fingertip in his ass. It was tantalizing. He could move a bit now -- he slid his hands up and clutched the front of Zeke's shirt. Zeke grunted and shifted, getting the skin Casey had pinched eased out from between his fingers. They lay there.

"What have you done before?" Casey asked, eyes still closed. It was amazing to know he could ask Zeke a question like that and get some answers. The whole night and morning were amazing. Casey wanted to just giggle and keep giggling. Son of a bitch. Holy fuck. To go from where he was six months ago to here -- disorienting. Impossible.

Zeke wasn't answering him yet and Casey had recovered enough to scoot up and look him in the face. Zeke looked a bit embarrassed, like he wasn't going to say anything.

"I'm not trying to get you to tell me your secrets," Casey said. "I just want to know, if you're gonna fuck me," he made himself go on, though his mouth was suddenly dry, "if you know what you're doing."

Zeke got up abruptly, scrambling a little. "We need some lube," he said, and looked around for his car keys as he pulled up his jeans and fastened them for the third time that morning. Well, Casey assumed it was the third time. Casey sat up, too, and found the keys inadvertently yet efficiently when he put his hand on them, which made him wince. He held them up for Zeke and slowly stood up himself. Still naked, but it was feeling pretty ordinary now. Not embarrassing. He actually felt a little proud. He was not a ripped jock like Zeke was, but clearly he was getting it done for Zeke. So that was good. He felt... comfortable, like he could be here. It was a heady feeling.

His clothes were scattered half under the bed. He could feel Zeke watching him as he gathered them and slowly put them on. But before Casey was fully dressed Zeke turned and left. Casey followed, stopping at the toilet, and found the kitchen door standing open and Zeke on the small back porch at the top of the stairs, smoking, staring into space.

Casey hesitated a half step, a tiny hanging moment, in the kitchen doorway. Zeke reached out, as if to take Casey's shoulder and pull him in, but then he aborted and pulled back his hand. He looked at Casey, his face neutral. His cigarette hung at his side. Casey walked the last couple of steps to him and pressed against his front, not hugging, just touching Zeke with his chest and thigh. His cheek pressed Zeke's collar bone. He felt Zeke's hand tentatively place itself in the middle of his back, lightly at first, then with more confidence in the pressure.

Casey stood there a second, then leaned back and away.

"Lube," Casey said, and Zeke nodded and turned and went down the stairs to the new GTO. He tossed his butt as they backed down the driveway. Casey glanced at him, and pulled the pack of Camels from the windshield ledge and extracted one. He looked around for a Bic or a Zippo, and, not finding anything, clicked in the dashboard lighter. Zeke must have stuck his Zippo in his pocket.

While he waited for the lighter to pop, Casey said, "Newer cars don't have these at all."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zeke nodding. Casey put the Camel in his mouth and lit it with the red-glowing metal cylinder.

"Dangerous fucking things," he said as he stuck it back in its hole in the dash. He dragged on the cigarette, experimenting, and coughed. "You are way too smart to smoke these, you know?"

"I know it," Zeke said. "But i'm a contradiction."

"So contradict me. Who's fucking who, here, and do you know what you're doing, or what?"

"Whom," Zeke said. "Who's fucking whom." Casey did not deign to answer. He knew avoidance behavior when he saw it. After a minute, Zeke said, looking straight ahead at the road, "I don't know what I'm doing, exactly, but I have every confidence that we can figure it out."

Casey looked at him sidelong. "Your blow job was quite fine."

Zeke glanced at him and it looked as if he was trying not to laugh. "Yeah, I do have some experience with those."

Casey nodded and leaned back. He took another unpleasant hit off the Camel and Zeke held out his hand for it. Casey gave it to him and Zeke smoked and drove until they got to Walgreens. Casey just sat there in the front seat, assuming Zeke would go in, and that's what happened. Casey waited.

This was too fucking much. Way too fucking much. He was going to either get himself opened up and pinned and fucked into next week or he was going to do that to Zeke. Or maybe both. He felt his cock stirring in his jeans yet again at the images that the thoughts produced in his head, and he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Way too much to imagine. Incredible.

Zeke came back with a white plastic sack that he threw to Casey. He shoved the car into gear and squealed off. Casey checked inside the sack and found a nice medically appropriate looking tube of water-based lube. Water-based was quite important, from what he understood.

He looked up. "You have rubbers at home," he said and Zeke nodded. Zeke's face was pink under his tan. This gave Casey a silly and quite satisfactory sense of putting one over on Zeke, of gaining some points. "You're blushing," he pointed out, and of course then Zeke blushed more.

"Shut up or you're not getting any," Zeke said.

"Ah ha ha ha," Casey said. "Somehow i doubt that." He reached over and put his hand on the bulge in Zeke's pants. Zeke flinched, but then he settled. The touch had no apparent effect on him otherwise, except that he drove a little faster than on the journey to the drug store. He went through the drive-in at McDonalds and ordered two Big Breakfasts for himself and two large coffees. It was getting late for breakfast to be served and the voice in the box informed Zeke patronizingly that he was getting the very last two breakfasts available. Zeke rolled his eyes.

"You want cream?" he asked, and Casey nodded. "You want something?"

"No, I, uh, ate at home," Casey said. His mom had actually fixed him an extravagant country breakfast with all the extras, like she did for him and his dad every weekend, but he didn't like to bring that up.

He took his hand from Zeke's dick when they approached the drive-up window. Then he sipped his coffee as they drove home. He found a paper napkin to wrap up the empty creamers in. There was no trash sack, and the interior of Zeke's car was as clean as if it had been detailed that morning. So he put the napkin of empty containers carefully in his lap. McDonald's napkins were brown now. Recycled and so much easier on the environment, yeah right.

"I think they irradiate the half-and-half now," Zeke said over the rim of his styrofoam cup. He drank his coffee black. He took the lid off, too, Casey noticed, refusing to slurp the coffee through the little triangular hole you could tear in it.

"Yeah, they don't have to refrigerate it then," Casey answered, watching Zeke carefully. It was dawning on him that he could already see the moods underneath Zeke's mask. He knew, for example, that right now Zeke was excited and thinking hard and a little uncertain. It was like the intense immersion in Zeke's body had unlocked some kind of secret door into his mind, as well, a door only Casey could enter. He smiled and sipped coffee. It was way too hot. That lawsuit would have taught the McDonald's people something about that, you would think.

Zeke transferred his coffee to his left hand and turned up the radio. Some guys were taking listener calls about car repair. It was pretty funny.

"Is that Athens or Columbus?" Casey asked. He just wanted to hear Zeke say something again. The sausage and egg smell was making his mouth water even though he really wasn't too hungry.

"It's Athens. The Columbus NPR station plays jazz on Saturday morning."

They were back in the driveway.

"I only ever listen to "Science Friday." " Casey accepted Zeke's coffee so that Zeke could carry in all his sacks. Zeke sat down at his kitchen table and devoured the eggs and sausage and hashbrown cakes and pancakes and biscuits and drank three glasses of milk that he poured from his own refrigerator while they talked about the relative transmission strengths of the two college radio stations and where their reception was best. They determined that Casey knew a lot more about frequency modulation and radio signal generation, where Zeke had superior knowledge of the impact of weather and cloud cover on a.m. stations. They agreed "Science Friday" was a cool show. Zeke was explaining the premise behind "Car Talk" as he threw away the McDonald's trash. Casey stood and watched him. He had been feeling the imminence of going back to the bedroom all during the time Zeke was eating. It was an almost unbearable anticipation. Zeke turned from the garbage can and they were both left looking at the innocent wrinkled white sack on the now-bare kitchen table. Their eyes met. Zeke opened his mouth and Casey could see him suck in a breath. He reached for the sack suddenly, scooping it up, and turned to Casey.

"Come on," he said, and as soon as he was back in the bedroom he started undoing his clothes with one hand while he rummaged in a drawer, finding a neutral-looking new box of condoms. "We'll save the cherry flavored ones for the marks, okay?" he said, smirking, turning to Casey, who was unbuttoning his shirt as he peeled out of his sneakers.

Casey's entire awareness seemed to be centered in his memory of Zeke's finger in his ass. He stumbled a little in his haste to get his clothes off. Zeke had tossed the supplies on a corner of the bed, and he approached Casey slowly, smiling, and knelt in front of him, pulling Casey's already stiff dick into his mouth, also slowly. Casey had to open his mouth to breathe. He tried not to pant. He tried to keep his knee muscles functioning. His hands fell softly to Zeke's hair. Zeke's mouth was hot like the coffee -- hot and wet and caressing. It was so very hard to keep his eyes open, but it was unspeakably thrilling to watch his red dick disappearing between Zeke's plump lips. Zeke's hands tightened on his hips and Casey closed his eyes, feeling Zeke's size and his restraint, feeling how Zeke could pick him up and throw him on the bed if he wanted to, could slam him against the wall or tackle him, and yet knowing that Zeke simply would not do that. All this new knowledge made Casey breathless. He opened his eyes when he felt Zeke's hand wrap around his dick below Zeke's mouth, and Zeke's other hand insinuate itself between his legs. Casey immediately widened his stance. Zeke's fingers explored, tickling, caressing, edging into the crease. Casey tightened his hands on Zeke's head and closed his eyes again. After a little, he felt Zeke pull away, and Casey opened his eyes and staggered forward. They crawled on to the bed, finding themselves on their sides, facing each other. Zeke's hand was back on Casey's dick, stroking down, rolling his balls, pushing warmly between his legs. Then Zeke leaned away for a second to get the lube.

"How do you want to do this?" Zeke said, flashing him a glance as he got through all the packaging and spread the gel over his fingers. He was reaching between Casey's legs again as Casey tried to answer.

"I, I don't know... um... shit." A stroking finger covered with lube was ... spectacular. Casey's head sagged back and he opened his legs, propping his thigh up with one hand. Zeke moved and Casey glanced at him just for a moment to note that Zeke was sitting up; he was watching. Warmth ran over Casey's skin, a shockwave spreading outward from his spine. He licked his lips. "Oh, fuck," he said.

It was absolutely impossible to divide his attention. Casey shut his eyes and hung on to his own leg and the pillow for dear life. Zeke was running his slippery finger along Casey's crack, back and forth, rubbing and pressing at the opening, but at the same time he was stroking Casey's dick and this was all going to end in a fucking hurry. Casey couldn't speak but he managed to find Zeke's hand with his and stop him from moving it on his shaft. _Yeah, hold on, just hold on.... fuck...._ Zeke's fingertip was in him again and this was so easy and exquisite, slicked up like this. One finger, more than the fingertip, Zeke's finger, pushing in and then pulling slowly out.

_Jesus...._

Casey arched his spine and Zeke was doing more, touching harder, pushing in further as he could see that Casey really liked what he was doing.

Casey heard moans and realized they were his. He arched harder.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," he heard Zeke say. Casey moved a bit, reaching blindly, and found Zeke's hard swollen dick. The skin of the glans was hot velvet under his fingers, one warm drop of liquid losing its surface tension under Casey's thumb and spreading out. A stretch, then, quite a stretch in his ass, and god it was good. God. Jesus. Moaning. And then the fingers were gone, and Zeke's dick was hot and leaking in Casey's fist.

Casey's eyes flew open. Zeke looked mad, except Casey knew it wasn't mad at all. It was urgent concentration. There were two lovely smears of red under Zeke's cheekbones and his dick was hard as a rock. Zeke's hands were messily on Casey's hips, unintentionally smearing lube everywhere, pushing and turning him, urging Casey up on his knees.

"Come here, you little smart ass, come here, fuck, fuck."

Casey went, onto his elbows, his ass in the air, his legs spread apart, and he felt Zeke behind him, warm legs pressing his thighs, warm arms against his ribs, and Zeke was nudging the length of his cock against the line of Casey's ass, pushing and rubbing against him. It wasn't nearly enough. It might be good for Zeke, but this wasn't going to get it done.

"Jesus," Zeke said again, thrusting hard enough to rock Casey forward, but it was just the warm thick line of Zeke's cock and it wasn't enough.

"Come on, man, come on..." the rest of the sentence formed itself in Casey's mind – come on and fuck me -- and he felt his face getting hot. This was just so much, so intimate. It verged on embarrassing. But he could say the words. He wanted to hear them and he knew Zeke wanted to. "Come on and fuck me, Zeke, come on."

"Oh, Jesus," Zeke said, and he pulled away. Casey was panting and impatient. His skin felt singed. He leaned on one elbow and twisted his head, watching Zeke fumble with the condom box and more lube. He put his head back on the pillow and ran one hand down his stomach, checked in with his dick, and experimentally let his fingertips arrive at his ass. He rested there. Despite his burning impatience, it really wasn't that long. Zeke's hand on his hip again, and now it was a warm blunt nudge, and pressure, and this was a lot more than Zeke's fingers and Casey exhaled. Fuck. Yes. Would it fit… yes. Fuck.

It was a tearing pleasure, bright red and blinding and slick, and it was so good but it fucking hurt, too. Zeke was holding his hips with both hands now and was steadily pushing. Casey became aware that he was holding his breath and instinctively he knew that he could not do that and make this work. He made himself breathe. That helped a lot, but christ he wanted to push the pain aside. In him, Zeke was in him, there was a place he could feel Zeke should aim for, deep inside him, he wanted that nailed, he ached for it, but getting there was apparently going to be a bitch.

"Fuck, stop," Casey blurted, and Zeke was still.

"Are you okay?"

"Hurts..." Casey thought about breathing. Surely this would feel better soon. "Fuck."

"What would help. What do I do," Zeke said urgently. Casey tried to think. It was all such a fucking blur. His cock was sagging. He was angry, all of a sudden, losing the moment. _Fuck, no._ He reached back, dragged one of Zeke's hands up to his chest, started to lift himself.

"Help me," he said, pushing on Zeke's hand where it covered his nipple, and Zeke got it, got it immediately, and he rocked back -- ow -- and pulled Casey up with him, two big arms around Casey's ribs, and fuck but the angle changed everything. Several things happened at once.

Casey's knees slid further apart. The entire geometry of Zeke's cock in his ass shifted and softened. Gravity and the new angle pushed Zeke into him even further. Impossibly, more blood rushed into Casey's cock and he groaned aloud at the exquisite beautiful perfection that he suddenly felt. There was still pain but…. it didn't matter at all, not at all....

"Yeah, oh, yeah," Zeke said, sounding totally astonished. He pushed, and pulled back a little experimentally, and Casey groaned again. "Fuck," Zeke murmured, and kept moving.

Casey's skin was on fire. This was not like anything he had ever had before. This was so completely too much, too overwhelmingly, too perfect. It seemed like his head wanted to fall back against Zeke's shoulder and when he let it, it made everything another degree better, made it all a better fit, a fucking perfect fit and Casey yowled. He was limp, he did not exist except where this new exploding pleasure was happening deep inside him, that place and the heavy neglected buzz that was his own cock.

"Oh, fuck that's it, that's fucking it," Casey said, the release from pain making him talk, making him want to demand things... "Come on, Zeke, come on, oh god."

He sagged there, letting Zeke hold him up, letting Zeke fuck him harder, and his hips were catching on to the resistance they could give at the top of Zeke's stroke, and that was even more it. An itch that had been at the back of Casey's consciousness his entire life was getting a thorough scratch. He tightened his hands on Zeke's forearms. He could distantly hear Zeke swearing and moaning. Time swirled and drowned and stood still. The world turned red. Casey knew when he came, because that was when everything exploded white.

Then eventually he knew about his breathing, and his sweaty temples, and he could see that he was being held tightly in Zeke's arms, sitting fairly comfortably, still impaled on Zeke's cock, his bent legs splayed outside Zeke's. His chest was heaving. Oh, and Zeke's was too.

"Oh my god," Casey said.

"Yeah," Zeke said, "that's about it."

They hovered, fighting for breath.

"But do we have repeatability," Zeke said.

"Or reliability," Casey added, smiling. "Verifiability." He wanted, needed, had to, lie down. Now. He leaned forward and Zeke released him. There was an odd slippery smack as his body let go of Zeke's dick. Casey giggled and collapsed.

Zeke said, "And there's always testing to failure," as his body sagged into the bed beside Casey.

"No," Casey said. His eyes were closed. He was asleep.

~~~

 

Casey woke to a needy growling in his gut, and his eyes came open and he looked at the ceiling and he felt a warm touch. Disoriented, he slid his gaze grittily to one side, and there was Zeke, propped up on one elbow, naked, petting him. It all came back to him in a rush, where he was, what had been happening. He felt satisfied and sore and ... hungry. Zeke's big warm hand slid down across his stomach and swiped around his hip bone and back up to his nipple. Repeat. He felt his lips curling a bit, contented, as he looked at Zeke. Okay, then. It had all worked. His setup of their "date," picking up Zeke at the game, everything. And now it was tomorrow and he was napping in Zeke's bed. After fucking him. Here they were. He put his hand over Zeke's and stopped its methodical orbit of his skin, and that made Zeke meet his glance. Zeke still looked kind of serious. Thoughtful. Distant. Casey knew better. He took his hand from Zeke's and put it on Zeke's cheek. Zeke kept looking at him.

"Let's get some lunch," Casey said.

"Pizza," Zeke said, and immediately got off the bed. Casey listened, and soon he heard Zeke talking on the phone in the kitchen. Yeah, delivered. That would be easiest. So nice; money no problem, apparently. Drug dealing or maybe some kind of trust fund; who knew. Casey wondered again about Zeke's absentee parents. But the thoughts didn't stick. He covered his own nipples with his palms, feeling whatever it was that he had changed into between yesterday and today. He slid his hands down his ribs, cupped his dick with one hand and let the other burrow into his pubic hair. Familiar. He straightened his legs and stretched, bending his arms again, arching his spine. He sat up. Yeah, sore, but in such a good way. Casey felt -- new, yet somehow older.

Zeke reappeared in the doorway, and Casey looked at him. His skin became abruptly paler at his waistline, and his legs were paler than his torso but darker than his groin. He got really brown in the sun, apparently. Zeke came over and climbed back onto the bed, flopping down next to Casey. Casey noticed, just a fleeting bit of data, that they both seemed totally comfortable naked. That was new, too. Gym and showering and so forth had always been a rather unpleasant and potentially humiliating experience for Casey. Until the thing with the aliens, he had always been a target, and the only thing that saved him from outright locker room violence for the last couple of years was the fact that the worst bullies were in varsity athletics, not among his pathetic loser group of gym-mates, and also that he had mastered the quickest rinse-off and get-dressed routine in Herrington history. But this, now, this was okay. Naked and horizontal with Zeke.

Zeke put a hand on Casey's shoulder and pulled him gently down again. He put his arm around Casey's back and stroked and pulled him closer.

"Thirty minutes. We'll have to listen for the doorbell, okay?"

And Casey could see why Zeke was noting the time, because he was nuzzling into Casey's shoulder, passing his hands over Casey's back and buttocks, tasting the skin around Casey's collarbone and his nipple. Fuck, who knew about that -- in the rush to get to the blow jobs and the fucking there was apparently a lot of fun stuff they had kind of glossed over along the way, and nipples was so on that list. Casey's surprised groan got Zeke's attention, because he slowed down, tonguing the tiny peak, tonguing the pebbled skin all around it, seeming to taste the few hairs that Casey could boast of there, then returning to the center and sucking, hard, Jesus. Casey was getting hard in a hurry again, and Zeke grunted his approval and pushed his own erection against Casey's leg while he found Casey's dick with his hand.

"Ungh," Casey said, when Zeke rolled him onto his back and moved to the other nipple and tried for...

"Repeatability," Casey said, and smiled and felt Zeke smile.

"Could I fuck you again? Would it hurt?"

"Shit...." The words were a powerful boost to Casey's already recycling desire for more. "Let's find out."

Zeke leaned up and kissed him quickly, and disappeared for a minute to find the tube and the rubbers. God only knew where they had landed. Casey had been ... busy, and then he had drifted off. He hadn't been focused on keeping track of shit. He closed his eyes and waited for Zeke, touching himself. He had wanted -- demanded -- this earlier. It had felt so urgent. Now it was something he wanted to slow down and savor. Well, until the pizza came, anyway. But he doubted it would take Zeke thirty whole minutes to get off again, even after coming a couple of times already. He doubted it would take himself that long either. The way his cock was responding to his hand right now was proof.

Here was Zeke, pushing between his legs, this time looking carefully, seriously, into Casey's eyes. The gel was cold and Casey flinched.

"Sorry," Zeke said, frowning.

"No, it's okay... It feels nice, actually." Yeah, he was sore. But maybe not too sore for round two. He realized he was still rubbing rhythmically at his own dick, but that was not at all embarrassing now. Zeke's fingers were gentle and the amount of lube he was smearing was generous. Zeke rubbed his hand on the sheets to get rid of the extra and Casey wondered for a second about positions. But they seemed to have the same idea. Zeke leaned up and crowded closer. Casey raised his calf, raised it all the way up and rested it on Zeke's shoulder. Zeke smiled and took hold of his other leg and yeah, ...

"You can bend like this?" Zeke grinned at him.

"Come on; it'll work."

It was shocking and so ... close to watch Zeke's face as he did this -- it was a trip to watch Zeke's expressions change as he leaned on one hand and took hold of himself with the other and wiggled and pushed his way in.

"Oh," Zeke said. He closed his eyes for a second and then looked down, glanced back up into Casey's eyes. "How we doing?"

"Come on," Casey said, and he let go of himself and reached for Zeke's shoulders. It didn't hurt one bit. He must be stretched and ready from before; this was ... incredible. He could concentrate all the way down and feel it all, feel Zeke opening him up, the beautiful hot stab. It make his dick get really, really hard, and he wanted to touch himself, but it was fine to just feel this, feel Zeke nailing him, slowly, slowly, till Zeke's pelvis was pressing against his butt.

"Shit," Zeke said again. He was hoarse. He was looking down, watching. He looked into Casey's eyes again and started a slow stroke.

Casey realized he was panting. His head fell to one side and he just relaxed into it. Jesus. Zeke shifted his weight and had one big hand clutching Casey's leg near his knee, but Casey's eyes flew open when he felt Zeke's other hand on his dick. It was overload, but knowing what to expect, and having come a couple of times already, let him skip a few steps of getting used to this, of letting it happen. Casey slipped happily into a Zeke-induced twilight zone, his skin singing, the room disappearing. The out-of-rhythm sensations in his ass and on his cock twined around each other, blending and blurring. The sensations, the harsh pull and push on all his skin, inside and outside, made reality blink. He moaned and writhed; Zeke held him so firmly -- delicious, ecstatic -- and then there was this long arching moment of tension before it all collapsed in on him, falling blooming bursting.

Zeke was saying, "Yeah, that's it, that's it, Casey, oh, Jesus, Casey," and then Zeke was holding his legs because they wanted to flop and really shoving it into him.

Casey felt drunk, just wasted. He wanted to giggle, but he couldn't move and he could barely make a noise. He raked a hand over his own forehead. He was damp with sweat. He felt better than he ever had in his life, better than the first time and that had seemed like the best it could get.

"Fuck," Zeke shouted, letting go of Casey's legs and tilting forward, panting. Casey could feel it, feel the quiver of Zeke's cock in his ass as Zeke came, and he shook his head and rubbed his face with unsteady hands and realized his thighs had been really, really stretched. He hitched his hips, trying to get away, get comfortable, and Zeke immediately unlocked his elbows and helped separate them. He collapsed onto his side.

"Now we need a shower," Zeke gasped.

"We'll miss the pizza." It was hard to push the words out; like talking through a mouthful of honey.

"...Good point."

"...Surely you can get up in a minute." Casey was recovering, the scattered pieces of his brain reorganizing themselves. He felt like giggling, felt the need to needle Zeke. "I mean, it's not like a tackle or something."

Zeke snorted. "Tackled by Casey, the wimpiest dude in school. Tackled by Casey Connor's white skinny ass."

"Fuck, yeah." Casey slapped at Zeke, connecting with skin. He could barely move, still limp with the aftermath. In the distance, the doorbell rang.

"Fuck," Zeke said, still laughing, and got up and found some sweatpants on the floor. He pulled them on and disappeared.

They ate the pizza at the kitchen table. Casey was really getting off on how he could make Zeke smile. How he could kid him and fuck with him and insult him, and Zeke would frown, his black eyebrows disappearing under his sloppy fringe of bangs, and then he would lean back and laugh and shove Casey's shoulder.

Still lecturing about meat processing and salmonella and listeria, Zeke led the way to the shower. Zeke seemed pumped, almost restless. Casey wondered if something would happen in the shower, but Zeke just kept talking and they washed themselves, not each other. Casey watched Zeke's face as the shampoo poured in foamy rivulets off his head and down his shoulders. He reached out and laid his palm against Zeke's chest, rubbing at one nipple just a little. Zeke shook the water out of his hair and smiled at Casey. He grabbed Casey by the shoulders and turned them both carefully so that Casey's back was under the water and he could rinse. When Casey opened his eyes Zeke was leaning against the back wall of the shower, his arms folded.

Zeke said, "How are you? Are you sore?"

Casey grinned and Zeke grinned back. "Yeah, but it feels really good. That doesn't make any sense, I know, but it does."

Zeke nodded, his face going all serious. "I don't want to hurt you, Case."

"Shit. You didn't hurt me." Casey reached up to link his arms around Zeke's neck, enjoying the warm drippy feeling of pressing their bodies together. They were both half hard again, and yet Casey was pretty sure there wouldn't be another round just then, from what he could see of Zeke's restless, talky mood, but whatever. He surprised himself by feeling all mushy and sweet, and he just went with it, leaned up as much as he could and kissed Zeke, trying to make the kiss tender, no want in it, only 'thank you,' and 'it's fine' and 'just you wait.'

Zeke moaned a little in his throat, and kissed him back the same way, but then he pulled his mouth away and gazed into Casey's eyes. He looked like he was trying to figure something out, but he looked... open. Like himself. It was not a look Casey was used to seeing on Zeke's face.

Casey said, making his voice matter of fact, though it wanted to go all breathless, "You'll like it. We'll do it that way, too." He made himself not drop his eyes as he added, "Me on top, I mean." And he kissed Zeke again, briefly, tasting water and soap.

When the kiss was over, Zeke stood there, eyes closed, like he was mulling it over, and nodded. Then he turned and stepped out of the shower. Casey followed him to the hall closet and accepted the old, clean towels Zeke threw at him. They went on back to Zeke's room and dressed.

Then Zeke said, "Come on," and grabbed his keys. In the car again, both set up with Camels lit from Zeke's big Zippo, Casey studied the slanting light of late afternoon and the colors of the maples. He thought of his camera, still in Zeke's kitchen, and thought about how he should have grabbed it this trip and how it would be fun to do some photos of Zeke. Leaves and skin against the bark of the trees, in black and white. The contrast of Zeke's dark hair and his smooth, perfect skin would be great in black and white. All texture, all flat light. Then add shadows... Casey looked at Zeke, planning his shots.

"Would you mind if I took some more photos of you?"

"Some more? What, you have some now?"

"Who did you think I was shooting at football practice? Not Gabe." Casey snorted and took a drag from his Camel and looked sidelong at Zeke, who seemed a little embarrassed.

"I thought those others were for the paper." Zeke glanced at Casey, then back at the road. Zeke was smiling, but only with the corners of his mouth. "I guess you can, but only if you don't put them in the yearbook."

Casey smiled. He was content, sated, full of pizza. He watched Herrington slide by the windows of the GTO. He didn't care where Zeke was taking them. He couldn't ever remember feeling this good for this many hours at a stretch. It was a little unbelievable. Okay, it was a lot unbelievable.

Zeke drove past the mall and the park with the swimming pool and on to a ratty strip of storefronts. _Oh, yeah, the used music place. Good,_ Casey thought. He never had enough money to spend in there, but it was fun to look, and you could listen to stuff in the headphones in the little booths along the side wall. They went in. Casey was immediately absorbed by the alternative rock section. He hadn't had time to get over here for a while, and they had a lot of new stuff. After a while he heard Zeke approaching him and he looked up. Zeke's hair had dried all spiky. Casey smiled for no reason.

"Look at this." Zeke had a new cd. The store did sell some new stuff, too, Casey remembered, mostly reissues of obscure old jazz, and orchestra music. "Deutsche Gramophone is reissuing some of the piano concerti that Karajan conducted in the sixties."

Casey smiled. Who knew Zeke would be a classical geek. He tried to look interested, but he had no idea who Karajan was. But it would probably be fun to find out.

"Hey, it's the losers." Casey and Zeke turned at the new, harsh voice. It was a guy from school, along with a little knot of his buddies, some of the guys who used to like to ram Casey into the flag pole and who also had been among the first to succumb to the parasites.

"What are you doing in here, pukes," a second one demanded. "There's no aliens in here." The boys nudged each other and snickered, like that was something really brilliant to say. Casey just stood there, staring.

Zeke set his cd on the rack of music that Casey had been flipping through and folded his arms. He spread his feet a little apart and cocked his head. "Losers, huh?" Zeke said. "Yeah, I lost quite a lot when I sold you that fake ID. Yeah, oh, and there was that term paper in March, too, remember? I certainly came out on the losing end of that transaction." Zeke's voice was loud and sarcastic. Casey glanced around; some of the other customers were looking.

"Shut up."

"Oh, and something else about Trent that you may not know, Casey; besides buying his homework and his phony proof of adulthood from me, he told me he likes girls to pee on him."

"That's not true!"

"Kinky," Casey said, laughing appreciatively.

"Not true?" Zeke was warming to his subject, leaning toward Trent and the others a little. "Well, maybe not. But how about the time I caught you in the boys' bathroom with your dick..."

But the little group had bolted. Zeke turned back to Casey and picked up his disc. "Anyway, it's gonna be like a who's who list of pianists; look at the notes...."

Zeke insisted on buying Casey a couple of the used cds he'd been looking at, though Casey kept telling him it was fine to just look.

Next they went to a camera shop, and they didn't buy anything there, but it was Casey's turn to chatter about what he was seeing. The late afternoon sun was stretching the shadows of the trees and the houses when they got back to Zeke's house with a bag of hamburgers. Casey had not brought his coat, but he didn't feel cold as they dashed up the stairs and through the back door. The Cokes and the hamburgers disappeared quickly, and they wandered into the den. Zeke didn't sit down, but he took up the remote and flipped through the cable channels one after the other. The early news shows were on, but there was nothing of import. No weather coming, no wars breaking out, nothing to do with water supplies or mass psychosis or anything that sounded like alien news. Casey sprawled on the couch, feeling physically tired but mentally alert, and watched the curve of Zeke's shoulder, the small twitches in his arm. Casey felt ... happy.

Zeke punched off the television and turned around. He tossed the remote on the coffee table near a closed laptop. Like the garage lab, this was clearly a place where Zeke spent time. There was a lived-in nest of newspapers, and science and medical journals, and school books and pens and spiral notebooks around the sofa, on the floor and on the coffee table. Casey looked up and Zeke looked down. They were both almost smiling.

"There's nothing on," Zeke said.

"Oh, shit, what a shame; I guess we're just gonna have to go back to bed," Casey said.

"Race you," Zeke said, and took off toward the hall. His dash was a feint, because as Casey caught up, Zeke skidded on the carpet, stopping suddenly, and grabbed Casey to tackle him. They were both giggling again, giggling and grappling in the hallway, bumping into the walls. Casey put up a struggle, but didn't resort to using his elbows or a dirty trick like trying to get a knee in Zeke's groin, but it wouldn't have been much of a contest even if he'd been trying.

Zeke had hold of both his wrists and leaned up against him, and the wall was at Casey's back, and Zeke was kissing him, kissing him, wet mouth on his lips, on his jaw, on his neck, and then gently biting him. Casey went limp and openmouthed, sparks running from his neck down his shoulder and arm.

"Come on," Zeke said, his eyes dark, his voice low, and he tugged on Casey's wrists and led him to the bedroom.

Stripping didn't take long, and then they were in bed again, all smooth warm skin and onion breath. Casey ran his hands down Zeke's arms, closed his fingers around Zeke's wrists, felt the solid muscles under the skin. Zeke grinned at him, going along with it. Casey bit his lower lip and pushed and wriggled until he was astride Zeke, just below his navel, kneeling across him, feeling the warm drag of Zeke's cock against his ass. He linked their fingers and leaned, putting weight on his hands, and Zeke held him up. Casey squeezed, ignoring the neglected tingle of his full cock, and looked into Zeke's brown eyes. Zeke squeezed back and bucked under him.

"Move down," Zeke said, and Casey lifted up and did, until he could look down at their cocks bumping gently together. He held Zeke's arms out to the side and leaned down and kissed him, and Zeke let him, moaning a little, jerking up to meet him. Casey felt like moaning, too. He straightened and let go of Zeke's hands and ran his hands up Zeke's hard arms, admiring. He framed Zeke's jaw with his palms and kissed him again. He had no idea why Zeke was being so still, letting Casey look at him and touch him and mess with him, but it was starting to give him ideas. He got up suddenly and opened the closet. As he had hoped, though he had never seen Zeke wear one, of course, there was a rack of ties on the inside of the door. He grabbed one at random -- it was red and silver stripes -- and turned back to the bed.

Zeke was squeezing his own dick, his body a brown sprawl across the disordered bed, and he said, "Who knew you and Trent had anything in common, you kinky little freak."

"You don't even know what I was thinking yet." Casey scrambled into his earlier position, kneeling astride Zeke's middle.

"Oh yes, I do," Zeke said, accusing, but he was unresisting as Casey tied one of his wrists in the striped silk, pulled his arm over his head, thought a minute, then wrapped the loose end of the tie two or three times through the bars of the headboard before bringing Zeke's other wrist up, too.

"Just trying to even the odds a little bit," Casey said, and he was breathless.

"Give me a pillow," Zeke said, a harsh note in his voice, and Casey stuffed another pillow under his head and Zeke wiggled and readjusted and got comfortable again as Casey watched. His arms flexed against the knots and he looked so hot like that -- the straight black thatch under his arms, the swell of his triceps, the way the angle of his arms pulled his nipples into ovals. Casey found he was breathing harder already and his cock was definitely interested -- standing straight up and welling a bit. He could smell Zeke now, too -- a harsher scent of sweat that maybe should have been a turnoff but wasn't.

Casey put his hands on Zeke's shoulders and leaned in and kissed him, pushing his tongue into Zeke's mouth, and Zeke moaned and rocked his hips and Casey was pretty sure he was going to start begging pretty soon and Jesus this was interesting. Casey leaned back. Zeke's mouth was wet; his eyes dark and flat.

"What are you going to do?" Zeke said.

"What do you want me to do?" Casey returned softly, rubbing his palms against Zeke's nipples.

Zeke grinned. "Something kinky?"

Casey laughed. "Oh, the tie's not quite kinky enough, huh? Who's the freaky bastard now?"

"It's kinky enough. So why don't you get on with it."

Casey grinned and just sat there a minute, watching Zeke's face. He had that intent gaze again, and that lovely red smear was returning to his cheekbones. Casey looked down and pulled their cocks together with two hands. There was lots of wet to move around this time, so he did that for a while, until he had them both moaning.

_Better do something else.... Can't end this yet._

Almost as satisfying as the sensations from his groin was the intent look on Zeke's face, the new, almost desperate note in the sounds Casey was drawing from him. Casey slid onto his stomach, easily parting Zeke's legs, and leaned on an elbow. His lips were less than an inch from Zeke's vibrating cock.

"Oh, come on, Casey. Fuck."

"Kinky and impatient," Casey said, but he didn't even look up before he leaned and pushed his lips around Zeke. Zeke groaned and began to buck his hips, pushing steadily into Casey's mouth, over and over, fucking him. Casey molded his lips around Zeke and pushed back, holding on to Zeke's hip. He experimented with angles, and with his tongue, until Zeke quit moaning and started saying, "oh fuck" over and over.

Casey pressed his hand around the firm curve of Zeke's hip and his ass until he could slide his fingers across the damp ridges of Zeke's asshole, and Zeke jerked once and then got really still. Casey pressed and stroked lightly, short little surface strokes with two fingers, his mouth quiet around Zeke's cock.

Zeke made some indefinable noise. Casey slowly pulled his mouth away. Well, better be polite, and check in, and ask, right? After all, Zeke's hands were tied and Casey didn't think he could get loose even if he wanted to.

"This all right?"

"Lube," Zeke gasped. "Where's the lube?"

_Yeah. It's all right._ Casey looked around and saw the lube on the nightstand. He smeared some on his fingers and nudged and moved, rearranging himself and Zeke's legs until he could get his mouth back on to Zeke and his fingers at a good angle. It was hard not to smile at the sounds Zeke was making.

Casey knew, now, just how to do this, just what would feel great, and Zeke was the utterly willing beneficiary of his new area of expertise. Share the joy, right? Casey kept Zeke's cock about halfway in his mouth, sucking gently, as he rubbed around Zeke's hole and then steadily began pushing in. As he expected, Zeke jerked, deep throating himself, and Casey moaned at that, and at the fact that he was getting no resistance at all from Zeke's body. He held his mouth still for Zeke to use however he liked, and he pushed two fingers in and out. He tried not to escalate the rhythm, but it was hard to keep it slow and deliberate. He felt a light sweat blooming on his shoulder blades and his forehead. His eyes were squeezed closed and he was concentrating hard -- yet it was so fun, so easy. Zeke filled his mouth, leaving a bitter taste on his tongue, and he could sink his slippery fingers clear to the big knuckle in Zeke's tight ass, over and over and over.

Zeke abruptly came, crying out, his hips slamming up, his back arching. Casey left his fingers in there and let Zeke pulse through the aftershocks. He didn't attempt to swallow everything, but rested his head on Zeke's thigh and wiped his mouth with the back of his forearm and waited for Zeke's twitches and bumps to push his fingers free.

"Mother. Fuck," Zeke gasped, still panting. Casey liked the view he had -- Zeke's cock, half hard and deep red, the curling dark hair around it, his smoothly ridged torso, his neck, turned sharply to one side so that his face was pressed against one arm. Zeke was lightly covered in sweat, too. Casey became aware again of how hard and ready he was, and he watched Zeke for a second and then hitched away just far enough to get a rubber and some more lube.

Zeke turned his head, slowly, like it was hard to move, and his eyes were dark as he watched Casey loom over him, nudging between his legs.

"Case," Zeke said, but it wasn't a question. It was more like a greeting.

"I'm not done yet," Casey said, and he smiled.

"Oh, Jesus," Zeke said. His eyes fell shut, and Casey waited a minute in case Zeke was going to tell him to stop, but there was nothing -- nothing but cooperation and acquiescence and then he had one of Zeke's heavy legs braced against his arm, and Zeke was helping him out, holding his legs out of the way, wrapping one around Casey's hip as Casey bit his lip again and lined them up.

_Oh shit oh fuck..._ Casey sank into tightness and heat. It was good; as good as getting it himself. It was fucking perfect. It was heaven.

"Oh shit," he said out loud, and Zeke arched against him and wrapped his legs against Casey's ass and growled at Casey. It was so inevitable, involuntary -- the way Casey's hips slammed forward as far as they could until stopped by Zeke's ass; then the contraction of his abs and his legs that slid him out of Zeke, just far enough to fail to break the connection between them. This went on and on and Casey's head sagged and his eyes shut and he was yelling, too, yelling and coming and pushing, pushing, pushing against Zeke's ass, and Zeke was growling and jerking like he was trying to get away. Then Casey's arms pretty much collapsed and he sagged against Zeke's chest, slipping in Zeke's come, trying to breathe, gasping, sucking in air.

"Fuck, oh, fuck, oh Jesus," Zeke was saying, as near as Casey could tell through the blood pounding in his ears.

Casey started laughing, laughing right there against Zeke's sweaty slippery stomach. He twitched himself out of Zeke's ass and kept laughing. He had to roll aside and clutch himself around his middle and finally the laughter ran out. Zeke was smiling at him, looking kind of wild, still tied up as he was, shifting like his wrists were getting uncomfortable.

"What," Zeke said, and Casey grinned at him and leaned up to untie the silk rep tie. When Zeke was free he slid down the pillows and stretched his arms, getting the muscles comfortable again. Then he chafed his wrists, just exactly like freed prisoners always did on cop shows.

"Nothing," Casey said, lying sideways, just looking at him. He put his hand on Zeke's arm, just to be touching him. "It's just... too much. Surreal."

Zeke took a deep breath and shook his head a little. He didn't seem, for once, to have a damn thing to say. He closed his eyes.

Casey relaxed then, and after a while he stretched and just let himself lie there on his back in Zeke's bed. The ceiling had tiny cracks in it. When he turned his head again, there was Zeke, big and solid and shocking, his hair stuck to his forehead where the sweat had dried. His eyes were closed, his long lashes a black smudge against his cheekbones. He looked asleep. Yeah, he would feel like resting, after that.

Casey felt the surprise of reality. All the intense things they'd done to each other this weekend were hard to believe; it was a quite a list when you ticked down it. Casey ran his hands down his own stomach to rest on his bony hips and wondered how they were changed now, the two of them. They were kind of intertwined now. Or something. He had felt that way at first about sex with Delilah, he remembered, but the connected feeling didn't last -- the feeling of having gotten inside someone's skin in a way that went beyond just touch. He looked at Zeke for a while, and Zeke just lay there, his legs tangled in Casey's. Casey could tell when Zeke did, in fact, doze off. Almost imperceptibly, the other boy's breathing changed. His muscles softened and relaxed. He somehow looked more tousled. Casey carefully pulled his legs free and wandered down the hall to use the toilet. He realized it was getting dark outside. Better check in with the parents. He went on down to the kitchen and the phone.

"Hello."

"It's me, mom."

"Casey, where are you?"

"Uh, I'm at Zeke's."

"Zeke's?"

"You might not remember him, from school? Anyway, I thought I'd sleep over. There's, uh, there's a movie marathon on cable. So, here's the number."

He gave it to her and she repeated it back.

"Don't stay up too late, then."

"Okay, mom."

"Be home by ten tomorrow, do you hear me?"

"Okay, mom. Bye."

Casey crept back to Zeke's room, but Zeke was still asleep. It was appealing, the thought of sliding into bed beside him again, fitting himself against Zeke's smooth skin, but Casey just stood in the door and remembered how it felt instead of doing it. He didn't want to lie down. He was too awake. Moving quietly, he found his underwear on the floor and pulled it on. He went out to the den and carefully stacked parts of Zeke's mess on the coffee table so that he could sprawl on the sofa, covered in a blanket. Zeke had a lot more cable channels that the Connors did.

After half of one movie, Zeke woke up and came out and crawled, naked, under the blanket with him.

Later they made microwave popcorn, and drank beer and dozed and eventually staggered back to Zeke's bed in the middle of a double episode of "Mad TV."

The house was warm and dark, and nestled with his back against Zeke's chest, Casey had an odd feeling of safety. Of comfort. It didn't seem foolish or sentimental to roll over and press his cheek to Zeke's, to press against his body and just kiss him for a while. Zeke seemed to like it. He tasted like the beer and like the fake butter from the popcorn. Casey was pretty sure they would fuck again before they went to sleep, but the arousal was a low, pleasant buzz between his legs now, not the crashing demand he had felt earlier. He smiled and ran his tongue experimentally across Zeke's lower lip, grinning when it tickled and made Zeke jerk.

"Fucker," Zeke breathed, leaning back in and capturing Casey's mouth, probing and licking deep and making Casey breathless. They both sighed and Zeke apparently had had enough of kissing for the moment, because he shifted his shoulders and gathered Casey against his chest, settling Casey's head against his collar bone. His broad hand made long firm sweeps up Casey's side.

Casey closed his eyes. He was wide awake again, even talkative. He opened his mouth, but he wasn't sure what he wanted to say. He closed it. He loved the feel of Zeke's hand, so he just noticed that for a while. He licked his lips.

"I was really sorry about your mouse," was what came out.

Zeke was quiet a minute before he responded. His hand kept moving along Casey's body, down to the curve of his ass and back up. "I was more sorry about Drake and Furlong, actually."

"Well yeah... I wasn't going to bring that up."

"Why not. It happened; you were there."

Casey had to shift then. The words made him restless. It was okay, though. Zeke didn't mind this. The small room was quiet around them. The dark seemed soft. Casey could feel the big rambling house, its vacant upstairs, its basement. It seemed like a known universe of explored space. No surprises. It was nice. But Zeke was alone here. It was a lot of house to be alone in.

Casey said, "Do you ever get ... scared, at night?"

"Yeah. But in the nightstand? In the bottom drawer? I've still got the gun. If you weren't here, it would be..." Zeke gave the pillow he was lying on a couple of gentle punches.

"Oh... I can keep that a secret."

"Yeah... I thought about closing the place up, going to Belgium where my mother is." Casey waited. It would be weird if Zeke left. "But I decided I'd better stay and watch. In case. You know."

"Yeah, and you know I'm doing that, too... You might need a decoy again someday."

Casey was trying to kid around, keep it light, but it made Zeke suck in a breath and his arms hitched Casey tighter. Casey felt Zeke swallow. He put his small hand over Zeke's bigger one and waited. In a moment Zeke pushed him, pushed him around and moved until they were facing each other. In the light from the street, Casey could see Zeke's serious face, his cheekbones slicing the shadows under his eyes.

"I'm not doing that to you again. If it ever happens again, Case, if we find more of them...." Zeke stared into his eyes and swallowed again. Casey put an awkward hand to Zeke's cheek.

"It's okay, Zeke. It's gonna be okay." Zeke was frowning, unmoving. Then he tugged on Casey again, settling them higher on the pillows, Casey's back to his chest, hugging him tightly. Casey turned his head so that his lips rested against Zeke's neck.

Zeke said, "You're not a decoy. You're not. What you did ... if you hadn't..."

"It was teamwork," Casey said. "You know -- you were the running back; me, I was --" There was laughter in Casey's voice. It made him weirdly happy, that Zeke would say that shit, notice what he'd done.

Zeke laughed, interrupting him, but he was floundering anyway with the metaphor. Sports -- he didn't know sports. "No no no -- the football thing, like totally breaks down. Forget the football."

"Yeah, I guess it sorta does." Casey still wanted to laugh. It quivered and bubbled in his chest. He hugged his arms around Zeke's arms. He pushed back, wiggling his ass against the warm softness of Zeke's groin.

Zeke said, "Just.... you're in it with me now. Or I'm with you."

"I know.... it's like we're going steady." Casey's contentment made him sound almost smug, almost mocking, and he felt Zeke tense.

"Well fuck you, then." Zeke started to let go of him and turn over, but Casey got his elbow into Zeke's ribs and stopped him. They were face to face. Casey kissed him softly, a peace offering.

Casey said, "We're, uh, getting kinda mushy here."

"You noticed." It was the patented Zeke growl, and he was still frowning. So Casey kissed him again, and again. After the fourth kiss, the frown was gone.

"Yeah," Casey said. "Yeah. I did."

 

END


End file.
